A lady health worker, part of a vaccination team for the Human Papillomavirus (HPV) immunisation campaign for girls, was beaten up by local women in Mandi Bahauddin on Thursday, police said.

Speaking to Dawn.com, Kuthiala Sheikhan Police Station House Officer (SHO) Sabir Hussain Sindhu said that the incident took place in Chak No 38.

“LHW Ghulam Sughra was beaten up by local women while the vaccination campaign was being carried out at a school,” he said, adding that the health worker was also thrown to the ground during the assault.

He said that a first information report (FIR) had been registered on the complaint of the health worker but no arrests have been made so far.

The FIR of the incident, a copy of which is available with Dawn.com, was registered at the Kuthiala Sheikhan Police Station under Sections 186 (obstructing public servant in discharge of public functions) and 506 (punishment for criminal intimidation) of the Pakistan Penal Code.

In the FIR, Sughra stated that she was present along with the team at Chak No 38. The complainant said that the team was vaccinating children at an elementary school when they were attacked by a woman, identified as Parveen, along with 15 other women.

“Parveen threw me to the ground and started punching me. The other women also started hitting me [and] they also swore at me,” she said.

Vaccine hesitancy in Pakistan remains a major public health challenge, driven by a mix of misinformation, safety concerns, and mistrust of authorities.

The HPV vaccine, first launched in Pakistan in 2022, has now been rolled out nationwide as part of the routine immunisation programme to protect adolescent girls against cervical cancer.

The immunisation campaign, which began on September 17, will conclude on September 27.

The campaign is being implemented in three phases: Phase 1, running from 15–27 September 2025, covers Punjab, Sindh, Azad Jammu and Kashmir, and the Islamabad Capital Territory; Phase 2 will expand to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in 2026; and Phase 3 will reach Balochistan and Gilgit-Baltistan in 2027.

The goal is to vaccinate 90 per cent of girls aged 9–14 in Phase 1 regions by the end of 2025, and to sustain high coverage through routine immunisation in the coming years.